XP12

[ricka47 611]

It's certainly true that XP11 was a great advancement over XP10.  I tried to use XP10 instead of FSX/P3D but just couldn't do it.  XP11 made me make the switch.

If LR can make that same type of leap in XP12, there would be less reason to abandon it for something new.  2020 will be an interesting year for flight simming!

 

Edited June 27, 2019 by ricka47

[irrics 1,517]

One big variable here for MSFS 2020 could end up being the Xbox version (and new XB hardware).

Distribution on a platform that large and wide reaching could do big numbers and even pull people into the PC side that started on Xbox and wanted to do more with it.

[kityatyi 78]

I have bought XP11 a week ago, after feeding on the MSFS series between 1996-2014 and from then on, LM P3D versions.

To be honest, I had high expectations. The reason why I bought XP11 is that I obtained my PPL (A) this July and was told by many that XP has far superior dynamics. Also, there seems to be way more general aviation stuff. So I said to myself, thousands of Euros spent on the "other platform" or not, I am gonna give XP11 a try.

I was initially quite pleasantly surprised. Even the default scenery looked acceptable, especially at night. Lighting, mood, and atmosphere are really "there" in XP11, Laminar nailed it. I'd love to see more 3D airports though, nothing fancy but at least a small building or hangar. But no big deal, it would be nitpicking to raise this as a concern.

After spending a week on XP11, having fun in the summer, I decided to check out how it looks in the winter. And then... bang... It looks exactly the same as in the summer. Seriously? Man, I had to doublecheck, triple check to actually believe that there are no seasons in this "superior" simulator. How realistic is it to spawn in northern Scandinavia, in Quebec, in Siberia, or anywhere snowy in December (for example), and find green summer fields and vegetation? I was - and still truly am - shocked and utterly disappointed. I really, really wanted to fall in love with the platform but this makes it a no-go for me.

I hoped there is some kind of cure, maybe some mods, plugins, anything. Found some pseudo-solutions, 3rd party payware add-ons (TerraMaxx or whatever it is called) but even that one won't bring about the expected result. It will load the textures globally, not taking regions, local climate, latitude into account. Flying from Quebec, Canada to Miami, Florida in December will spawn you in a more or less accurate, snowy airport for departure but as you move south, the transition is far from being smooth or gradual. New textures are loaded globally. First of all, one or more significant "loading pause" is introduced, second, imagine the landscape looking out the window being snow-covered and then all of a sudden, everything turns summer green. Very weak attempt - but at least, an attempt to improve on what Laminar should have delivered in the first place. Even prehistoric versions of the MSFS series had proper regional seasonal textures according to latitude, region and such. Right now if I wanna do the same flight in P3DV4.5 from Quebec to Florida, I will depart from a winter wonderland, possibly with snow falling, and then I will start seeing less and less snow cover as I progress southward. And then nicely, the snow textures are replaced with snowless yet wintry textures, and then gradually with more and more summer-representing ones. As it should be. It is totally ridiculous that XP11 does not offer this and I am very much hoping that the next version will introduce seasons by default.

I would really, really love to love the platform, so don't get me wrong, I am not here to bash XP11, it's actually the opposite. If I didn't like it, I would not give a d*mn about the details. What makes me seriously concerned is the response from Laminar on their forums, saying seasons are not even on their current roadmap. So I have no high hopes about improvements regarding the lack of four seasons. 

A very nice looking summer sim, this is what XP11 is for me right now.

Maybe some of you know more about what is going on behind the scenes, maybe I just didn't find the forum posts where there is talk about incoming seasons. Learning that seasons will be introduced would make my day for sure. P3D has its own issues (loads of...) so never know, perhaps the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator is going to be the one that gets it right.

Edited August 11, 2019 by kityatyi

[Bjoern 1,157]

No official word on seasons (yet).

Can't blame 'em as they've got their hands full with the Vulkan port.

[kityatyi 78]

Just now, Bjoern said:

No official word on seasons (yet).

Can't blame 'em as they've got their hands full with the Vulkan port.

What is the Vulkan port? Seen it everywhere, but have no clue what it is.

[Murmur 3,941]

Your disappointment is totally understandable, but remember that it's the other way around in some sense, that is FSX (and its spinoff P3D) is actually the only one flight sim that has seasons. There isn't any other civil or military flight sim that has seasons. So in a sense, it is not something that XP is lacking, but rather an extraordinary feature that only FSX/P3D has been capable to achieve, probably thanks to the extraordinary resources afforded by Microsoft.

That being said, everyone is complaining about lack of seasons in XP. Developers said they intend to implement "procedural" seasons, where the terrain changes in real time according to season, weather, snow, etc. and not relying on a limited set of different seasonal textures.

Nobody knows when it will be implemented though. Not in XP 11, at 99.99% chance.

[jcomm 5,929]

Well, in some way Flight Gear, DCS and IL-2 do have seasons too ...

Edited August 12, 2019 by jcomm

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

DCS has 3D Speedtrees that change with the seasons and unlike the implementation in P3d4, the trees actually look good. Unfortunately, DCS operates on a planet the size of the one in the book The Little Prince. It's easy to get great performance when the scope of the simulation is limited.

[Bjoern 1,157]

22 hours ago, kityatyi said:

What is the Vulkan port? Seen it everywhere, but have no clue what it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API)

In short: Futureproofing XP's rendering engine with better multicore support and an increase in rendering performance on newer CPUs with the biggest improvements (up to 20% or so) going to team AMD.

[Airboeing 87]

11 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

DCS has 3D Speedtrees that change with the seasons and unlike the implementation in P3d4, the trees actually look good. Unfortunately, DCS operates on a planet the size of the one in the book The Little Prince. It's easy to get great performance when the scope of the simulation is limited.

Also, while looking good when you are distracted with a dog fight or bombing, the base scenery in DCS isn't that good to begin with, especially at altitude. I don't think any civil flight sim enthusiast would accept something like this in a sim 2019/2020, and yes, I do have my settings in DCS on the right.

Especially the NTTR terrain can really look horrible due to the lack of dense trees and autogen. The autogen manages to cover up bland terrain pretty good, especially on the caucasus map, but that's it.

 

[Colonel X 1,430]

I think we will see a year long beta for the Vulcan switch. Then XP12 with new environment engine (incl. new clouds, skies, procedural seasons and 3D water) the earliest holiday season 2020 (in 16 months), probably 2021.

[jfri 42]

15 hours ago, Bjoern said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API)

In short: Futureproofing XP's rendering engine with better multicore support and an increase in rendering performance on newer CPUs with the biggest improvements (up to 20% or so) going to team AMD.

CPU multicore or GPU multicore ?
Which are the newer CPU ? Is Haswell I7 4770K among them ?

[Murmur 3,941]

5 hours ago, Colonel X said:

Then XP12 with new environment engine (incl. new clouds, skies, procedural seasons and 3D water) the earliest holiday season 2020 (in 16 months), probably 2021.

I hope for LR, XP12 will have all those features, because if the new MFS will confirm what we've seen in the trailer, that would be the only way for XP to remain relevant as it is today.

[Paraffin 2,197]

6 hours ago, Colonel X said:

I think we will see a year long beta for the Vulcan switch. Then XP12 with new environment engine (incl. new clouds, skies, procedural seasons and 3D water) the earliest holiday season 2020 (in 16 months), probably 2021.

The odds are probably good for a new weather engine in XP12. Based on that one recent video clip where Austin is being shown xEnviro ("What's this called again?") he knows the default weather isn't good, and the underlying code isn't enough for 3rd parties to work with. 

I'm not so sure about seasons in XP12. There does have to be a reason for people to upgrade from XP11, and seasons plus better weather would do it. What worries me about seasons is that Austin just doesn't seem to think it's important, based on past comments. He mentioned a procedural approach, but that doesn't mean he cares about it enough to spend resources on it. Especially if it impacts frame rate optimization, which has been the big push lately. So I hope we get seasons in XP12 but I'm not betting any money on it.

 

53 minutes ago, Murmur said:

I hope for LR, XP12 will have all those features, because if the new MFS will confirm what we've seen in the trailer, that would be the only way for XP to remain relevant as it is today.

Right now it's really hard to figure out what that new sim will be. The trailer is impressive, but a new sim won't be successful if the flight model isn't great, and if it doesn't have the aircraft people want to fly (my personal red line there is helicopters). It's going to take a long time to build that out. 

There are some big questions about whether it will use streamed content for scenery that requires a faster internet connection than many people have. And more questions about what kind of hardware you'd need to get an acceptable frame rate, with what they're showing in the trailer. 

With Laminar's current focus on frame rate optimization and the great feel of the flight models, X-Plane could still have a strong place in the market if the new MSFS turns out to be just an eye candy tech demo. I hope it's more than that, but we'll see.

Anyway, I think the one thing we can be assured of, is that X-Plane isn't going anywhere as long as Austin is still around. It's his pet project, other than his Lancair plane. He'll keep it going even if it's not making a profit. He can afford it.

Edited August 13, 2019 by Paraffin

[Bjoern 1,157]

6 hours ago, jfri said:

CPU multicore or GPU multicore ?
Which are the newer CPU ? Is Haswell I7 4770K among them ?

CPU. Or maybe also GPU. I don't know.

Can't say what counts as a newer GPU. We will have to wait for benchmarks from users with a variety of CPUs.